1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to medication containers used for dispensing medications in pharmacies and healthcare settings.
2. Description of the Related Art
At a pharmacy which fills medication prescriptions, a main function of a pharmacist is to ensure that the correct medication is given to the correct patient, thus ensuring patient safety. Due to the increasing number of prescriptions written by medical providers, there has been a shortage in resources to support the overwhelming need to dispense the large number of prescription medications. There has also been a need for more efficient prescription processing and filling turnover to fulfill the increased demand. To meet the aforementioned increases in prescriptions, demand and desire to provide better patient service, the pharmacy industry has strived to increase efficiency and speed. However, the resulting increases in efficiency and speed may lead to compromised medication filling accuracy and increased medication filling errors. Consequently, patient safety may be grossly affected.
With the rise in the number of prescriptions written and filled, patients are being exposed to more and more dangerous medications. Medications are becoming more potent and the small, hard to read features on medications do not allow for easy identification. Unfortunately, due to the high volume of prescriptions filled daily, pharmacists and pharmacy personnel are making mistakes. Combined with difficulty to distinguish one pill from another, patients often ingest the wrong medication through the mistakes of either the pharmacy or by the patients themselves. These medication errors contribute to the increase in poisonings, life threatening injuries and fatalities in patients.
Additionally, with the large volume of prescriptions being filled, pharmacists and pharmacy personnel are faced with the repetitive motion of opening and closing prescription containers to identify and verify the medication given to the patients during the review stage of the filling workflow. The repetitive motion of opening and closing has become a source of occupational injuries for pharmacy personnel leading to decreased productivity and increased costs in work related injury costs.
The current state of pharmacy operations for dispensing medications has numerous problems that lead to increases in healthcare dollars associated with preventable wrong-medication ingestion injuries, repetitive motion injuries, suffering and expenditures for both employers and patients. Therefore, there is a need to have products or tools to improve efficiency, to meet the increased demand, and to prevent work related injuries without compromising patient safety.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,036,017 and 6,386,367 describe a safety prescription container that includes a cylindrical receptacle, a detachable cap, and a label. A pill holder is positioned beneath the cap, which includes a magnifying lens (a convex lens), through which the interior of the pill holder can be viewed (see FIGS. 2 and 3 thereof). Another embodiment (FIG. 4 thereof) includes a magnifying lens (a convex lens) located at the bottom of the container.